mid-day's 42nd anniversary: The spinner who spins no tales

Ashutosh Marathe. Pic/Shadab Khan

Ashutosh Marathe, 53
His exploits earned him the honour of being Mumbai Cricket Association's Junior Cricketer for 1980-81. Now, he is an author

In fixture books distributed year after year to cricketers, umpires and club officials for the Dr HD Kanga Cricket League, there is a mention of a certain Ashutosh Marathe. He appears in the roll of honour for the Best Junior Cricketer of the Year. Some of his predecessors (1980-81) in that list are famous - Eknath Solkar, Ravi Shastri and Chandrakant Pandit. The ones who follow him are prominent too - Sachin Tendulkar, Amol Muzumdar and Ajit Agarkar.

Marathe, 53, a former Mumbai U-15 and U-19 left-arm spinner, now figures in another book - his very own - written during the first COVID-caused lockdown in 2020 and released recently.

The Extra in Ordinary, published by Notion Press, is a book of short stories, which Marathe decided to write after some friends started missing his regular blogs. Three sections with 13 short chapters, each is constructed with a simplistic approach like a bowler with a pleasing run-up.

"Those who were missing my blogs wondered whether I had stopped writing or decided not to post whatever I wrote. I decided that I should be the one who should make the most of the lockdown," says Marathe, a lawyer, who started out as a banker.

"I always loved to read. I loved David Morrell's suspense and thriller books. Later, I liked Sudha Murthy's books," he says. From the choice of authors, he dwells on what makes interesting reading: "I realised that even ordinary incidents can send out strong messages. So much gets written about famous people and their achievements but writing on their struggles is important, the struggles when he or she was not famous."

Malgudi Days fan Marathe's favourite story among the 39 in his book is The Boy Who Knew Too Much. It's about an eight-year-old lad who happened to be around a vada pav stall which Marathe had visited. He told Marathe that he had not eaten for two days. He was happy to buy him any amount of vada pavs. But a ‘counter offer' was made - wheat flour instead because that would help feed the urchin's family as well. When the wheat flour packet was handed to him, he asked for oil. The poor boy's wish was granted and he vanished. "It was then that I realised that the tact he had employed far surpassed those used by lawyers like me. Quite evidently, the boy who stood before me was not ordinary," writes Marathe.

It took Marathe a year to see his book project come to fruition. He is used to doing things swiftly. Ask him about his cricketing career and he will reveal how
he took his first steps in cricket at the Punjab Association club pitch at Matunga. Fast bowler Austin Coutinho, the famous caricaturist, was one of their players and when he saw Marathe bowl, he asked his father to enrol him in a coaching camp. Marathe Jr ended up at Vasant Amladi's nets at PJ Hindu Gymkhana and within a short span of time he was representing the 1980-81 Bombay U-15 team and later selected for BCCI's National camp under the watchful eyes of Col Hemu Adhikari.

Marathe's literary work may give rise to another book. One More Over, he could well title it, like ex-India offie EAS Prasanna did for his autobiography.